I mentioned Perri Cappell of WSJ the other day as a great resource. Anne Fisher is another columnist I consider exceptionally good, and frankly, my favorite. She writes a weekly career advice column, Ask Annie, on CNN/Money, that is always trenchant.

I encourage you to take a look at her past columns. Then subscribe.

And, her book, “If My Career’s On The Fast Track, Where Do I Get a Road Map?” is also a great one for those just starting a corporate career.

One of our members owns a public relations firm and believes that the Manager Tools story is too important not to tell to the major business press: Fortune, Fast Company, etc. Part of that effort will be to interview several members about what you think of our work and how it has helped you.

If you’re willing to be interviewed - and this ABSOLUTELY includes international members - please send Mark an email saying so at mark_AT_manager-tools.com. (Sorry I can’t make this a mailto link - the bots crawl our site constantly, and I don’t want to invite more spam than I already get. - H)

Manager Tools has won an award from The Podcast Awards for driving the most traffic to their site through the use of their banner ad. (That was the graphic at the top left of our page).

The simple note we received from the CEO of the awards, Todd Cochrane, said:

Your site drove the most traffic to the Podcast Awards Website during the nomination process through banner clicks from your website please forward me a 120×120 graphic of your show for placement on the website. There were other sites that drove more actual traffic without banners but you had the highest click rate on the banner.

The contest page regarding the banner ad says that the top three sites driving traffic will get a year’s free advertising on their site. While it’s probably not important (feel free to call us competitive), we appear to be the top site of the three.

Mike and I would like to say thanks to everyone who voted for Manager Tools. We hope you won’t mind us calling on you to vote again once the “nominees” are announced. Since we only asked for help in the latter part of the awards, we’re hopeful we can win the business category, and that this smaller award is a good indicator.

Horstman’s Fourth Laws is, “Control is an Illusion.” I wrote it one day after I had been asked to describe the difference between management and leadership (for the hundredth time). Every resource I read said or implied that management was about “control”.

If you think your managerial role is to control your team, you’re sadly mistaken.

You don’t control your team… unless you’re comfortable admitting that your boss controls you. What’s more, if you still think you control your team, I promise you that they KNOW you think that, they KNOW you’re wrong, and they REALLY don’t like you.

REALLY.

There is a saying, “we do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children.”

As a manager, you don’t inherit control from the company. You borrow influence from your team.

In today’s fast and flat world, ideas are becoming critical competitive advantages. Managers - and many others - need to be good at getting the most and best ideas from themselves and their teams.

And, if you ask a hundred managers what are some of the tools they might use to generate ideas, the ONLY tool that would get 100 votes is brainstorming. The funny thing is, we’ve been in lots of meetings where folks said that what they were doing was brainstorming, but it wasn’t. It was solution development, which is a completely different thing.

Today’s cast is part 2 of the 2-part series on Brainstorming.

Note: As was the case last time, apologies to all on the audio quality of the show. Next week we’ll be back to the studio (basement) … no more beach sounds in the background!

The article I mentioned earlier today at CareerJournal was written by Perri Cappell. Perri recently retired from WSJ, which is too bad, because she has been, for several years, one of the best writers you can read about careers, interviewing, and the like.

Many of her articles are still on the site - because they are so good they don’t go out of style. I encourage you to go there and look at the body of her work. And if you ever see her byline, go with what she recommends.

I recently “promoted” to the main blog a question about interviewing attire. I made the point that even in a business casual environment, a suit was really the only smart and acceptable way to go to an interview (ladies too).

Because sometimes our approach tends to be a little more formal - or at least, we tend to deliver it with a tone that brooks less discussion - I try to provide reinforcement from other sources.

Recently, CareerJournal, the excellent careers site run by the Wall Street Journal, ran an article on What Not To Wear in Interviews.

In case you don’t want to go read it (it’s short and quite good, and there’s more than what’s here), I will excerpt one quote from Patrick Dailey, a Nokia HR manager, with whom I am familiar. His advice is routinely quite good.

The dress-code rule of thumb for men interviewing at most U.S. companies remains a dark suit, a light or white shirt and a bright-colored but sophisticated tie, says Patrick Dailey, a Dallas-based director of business human resources for Nokia Corp., a Finnish telecommunications company. He notes that since there are so many uncontrollable things that can work against you during job interviews, it’s wise to control what you can.

“Go by your mom’s rule,” says Mr. Dailey. “You can never be overdressed. Even if they say to wear business casual, it’s appropriate for you to be in a suit and tie.”

We promised everyone an update on our efforts regarding Intellectual Property… we just didn’t think it would be this fast or this … disheartening.

Thursday night, I got a private message from Ron Bieber letting us know that Podshow was hosting our REGISTERED MEMBERS feed on their site. Thanks, Ron. Mike and I owe you one.

Needless to say, Mike and I are disappointed in and angry with Podshow. In much the same vein that Manager Tools focuses on behavior, we’re not going to ask what Adam Curry or his staff’s “intent” was. The fact is, their behavior is unacceptable. Maybe it’s not prima facie illegal right now, it is something that to Mike and I is far worse: it is unethical.

Mike said in his first polite “please stop hosting our show without pointing to our site” email, “I don’t think you’re evil.” We still don’t think Podshow is evil… but we can understand why others would think that. We do think they’ve engaged in behavior that is unseemly, and we find it objectionable. If Podshow does not respond appropriately to his latest mail, we’ll ask our lawyer to draft a cease and desist letter.

We recognize that our shows and content - and relatedly, our business model - are different from podcasting in general. Nevertheless, there are reasonable bounds of propriety in all exchanges and industries and common spaces. Knowingly publishing someone else’s content that was clearly marked as “for members only” is unacceptable. We have asked you, our community of listeners, to join us, and we specifically provide the members’ monthly cast as a benefit of joining. Getting those shows without joining devalues the commitment and communication you share with us.

Our lawyer has drafted a license which Mike and I will review in the next few days. Rest assured that there will always be free casts. We always intended that those casts be for personal use. We’ll detail what this means once we nail down all the details.

But we will not change any of our intent or compromise how you are using our work.

Because that’s the ethical thing to do.

I have received a couple of emails recently about the picture I use as an “avatar” on the Discussion Forums. One was rooted in golf, and one seemed to have a tone of “is this really professional?”

So, for the record:

I decided to use an avatar because I am on the Discussion Forums a great deal, and the visual cues me to my posts INSTANTLY. I decided to have one when I saw someone else’s, and noted immediately that I knew who it was. It was a form of metadata that was helpful in my scanning.

I first thought of a head shot, but because I’m not that great with manipulating images, it always looked like a melon in an Altoids tin or a raisin in a warehouse.

I got lucky with the right size with the golf shot, so I chose that one. It did occur to me that it wasn’t in the strictest sense professional, but I was tired and think too many people spend too much time worrying about the wrong things anyway.

In the interest of full disclosure, when I travel on business, I routinely wear jeans and flip flops. It is one of the perks of having one’s own firm. I figure, if I do THAT, a picture of me playing golf is probably tolerable.

As to the golf angle, I am standing on the tee box of the 8th hole (a devilish little par three) at Spanish Bay out at Pebble Beach. That’s the Pacific Ocean behind me, and if you sense that I am happy, you’d be utterly correct. In the original shot, you can see surfers in the shore break. THAT is good karma.

I encourage more of you to join the Discussion Forums, and when you do, consider an avatar - it makes things easier. And if it’s not purely professional, why, that’s just fine. We know you’re more than just a manager.

I’ve written a couple of times about the need for managers to be sensitive to opportunities for women in management roles. Several months ago, Anne Fisher wrote a very interesting article in Fortune: Why Aren’t More CEOs Women?

Why Aren’t More CEOs Women?

I generally agree with several points made by Sheila Wellington, whom Ms. Fisher interviewed for the article. Ms. Wellington is a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and teaches a course called Women in Business Leadership. I probably wouldn’t go as far as she would - some of it seems hyperbolic - but she knows more about this than I do. That applies to the implication of the title of the article. I don’t think a lack of women CEOs is indicative of anything systemic yet.

There are two points in the article that were particularly interesting for me. Ms. Wellington suggests that young women wanting to have a successful career learn how to negotiate. I find this true generally, not just with women, but can’t argue her point. She goes on, though: “Lots of people aren’t comfortable negotiating, so I have them practice, practice, practice.” THIS is MY kind of professor. Practice WORKS.

The second point is worth repeating, but it sure isn’t pretty. When asked about a well known executive saying that women…”don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to,” Ms. Wellington said, “He spoke aloud what all too many men in leadership positions believe but don’t articulate.” (The executive resigned).

I have to believe there’s some truth to her comment, simply because I don’t see as many women whom I find incredibly talented getting as many promotions. But am I sitting next to men who make asides to me that I find full of bias? No. Do I sense an undertone in meetings? No.

But the data’s there. So: be watchful, gentlemen, of your biases.

One final point that may surprise. I think the reason more women aren’t CEOs is due to tenure, and not a great deal more. I don’t think we know enough yet to claim institutionalized bias keeping them out of that role. Women didn’t start entering the corporate world in numbers that were significant until perhaps the 1970’s. (Please, I know there were MANY women in business before then. I’m talking about large numbers. All you have to do is read Carol Loomis in Fortune to see how long gender discrimination persisted.) And, “CEO” is not a title given to small business owners. We’re talking here about the top job in the biggest companies in the world. I think it takes 30 years to get there, and in some cases it takes forty years.

I think the reason that there aren’t more women CEOs is because they haven’t been around long enough in significant enough numbers to compare their distribution at the very top with their distribution throughout the organizations. I could be totally wrong. I’ve emailed Ms. Wellington to ask if I am. If I am, I’ll let you know.

And keep this in mind: women make up 57% of graduating college students in the United States.

For those of you who are asking the quintessential Manager Tools question, “Okay, so what do I DO?” I have a recommendation. We’ll talk about succession planning and recruiting later this year, and recommend you have a “bench” of qualified people that you could reach out to fill openings on your team, and potentially pitch to your boss for peer roles. Make sure there are plenty of qualified women on your bench.